How to Trick Your Brain to Like Doing Hard Things – Atomic Habits by J... (2)
warren buffett so he's had a very
successful career
and he came to warren buffett one day
and he said warren i would like to fly
this particular type of plane
i think whenever we upgrade we should
get this new one and he said mike
you know if you're working for me in 10
years when we buy a new plane
then i probably have failed you as a
boss so here's what i'd like you to do
and this exercise that i'm about to
share
you can do on any level you can do it
for your career
you can do it for the things that you or
your team need to get done this month
you can do it for the things you need to
work on today or this week
and he said i'd like you to take the 25
things that you want to achieve in your
career and write them down on a list
so mike flint goes away writes down 25
things
he gets done and he says all right great
i want you to circle the top five things
on that list
so spend some more time he circles the
top five priorities
he says all right tell me what your
strategy is at this point
mike flynn said well i have my top five
things so
i'm gonna work on those first and he
said great what about the other things
on your list
uh he said well those will be the things
i do on nights or weekends or when i get
tired or bored or you know a project
stalls i'll work on that
and warren buffett said mike you got it
all wrong
the things that you have circled are
your priorities the other items on your
list number six
through 25 this is your never do under
any circumstance list
and the reason is because it's so easy
for us to rationalize
spending time on things that are good
uses of time but not great uses of time
it's items that six through 25 on your
list that take up time and space and
energy because we can justify why we
need to do them they're on the list for
a reason
they just don't happen to be the best
uses of our time
[Music]
i call this the three r's of habit
formation but the basic idea is that
no matter what habit you're working on
there are three main steps
based on the research the first step is
the prompt or the cue
or the trigger it's like a reminder the
thing that signals that we should do
something so
if my phone buzzes for example that's a
trigger
the next piece is the routine this is
the behavior itself the actual habit
that you're going to perform so my phone
buzzes that's the trigger
i answer the phone that's the routine
the third piece is the reward
so this is the benefit that you get for
doing the behavior and it's important to
note
that all habits good or bad have some
kind of benefit
or reward associated with them take
smoking for example people will often
label smoking as a bad habit so what's
the benefit what's the reward of it well
there's some kind of physiological
reward there's a hit of nicotine that's
associated with it
and then there are often social rewards
right you get to share smoke with a
friend or a colleague something like
that
so regardless of how we label habits or
behaviors
the important thing is to note that all
of them have some kind of benefit
neurologically associated with them now
so my phone rings that's a reminder
i answer the phone that's the routine
and then i get to satisfy my curiosity
or find out who's calling that's the
benefit
and what ends up happening is that if
that reward is positive
then it tells your brain hey remember
next time this reminder happens next
time this trigger comes along
we should repeat that pattern and once
you make it through the cycle enough
times
it becomes a habit it becomes ingrained
so
how can we leverage the first part of
this the trigger or the reminder
let's say that i wanted to start
meditating i could say
all right in the morning i make a cup of
coffee and so for this new behavior i
could say
when i make my morning cup of coffee i
will meditate for 60 seconds
and so the current behavior the things
that you're already doing
become the trigger for the new behavior
that you're trying to build
and the reason that this is important is
that your current behaviors things that
are already habits
have this neurological network built
into your mind
they already have like an on-ramp in
your brain and so you're just kind of
tapping into that
so you can tag the new behavior and link
it to something that's already strongly
correlated in your mind
[Music]
the two-minute rule there is no habit
that we're going to work on
that takes less than two minutes to do
but nearly any habit
can be started in under two minutes so
if you take exercise for example
you know often people get home from a
long day of work and they say i'm too
exhausted to go for a run or to try to
exercise
so i never get around to doing it
because i think about oh i have to run
five kilometers or whatever some long
distance that seems overwhelming to me
so rather than focus on the whole thing
that you need to do i would encourage
you to focus on just the first two
minutes
so what's the first two minutes of that
habit i put my running shoes on i get
out the door and i lock the door
and if you do just that it doesn't
matter if you take another step
but what you find is that motivation
often comes after starting
not before we often think that
motivation is something that we're
supposed to have before we do work
but motivation will come as a result of
doing some small bit of work
and then we can trust that the rest of
the process will flow easily
but the point here is that the
motivation needed to complete a habit is
at its peak
at the beginning of a behavior the
greatest amount of friction
for any type of task is that in the
beginning is in the starting
so the key idea is make it so easy that
you can't say no
here's another way to do this it's a
concept called pre-commitment it's been
very well researched
and i call these kind of like instant
willpower improvements they're things
that seem very simple
but we often ignore or don't put into
practice and if we do put them into
practice
they result in immediate boosts in
willpower here's one study
random sample of a business with 3 272
employees
the business wanted their employees to
get their annual flu
shot now to do this they sent them
a flyer that said you need to get your
flu shot but then they sent another
version
and that other version said you need to
get a flu shot
your appointment has already been
scheduled for april 22nd
click here or you know right send us a
message here
to choose the time that you want to
attend and what they found was just by
selecting a date
just by picking the day when people
would get it they were 2.4 times more
likely to follow through
but then they sent a third version and
they said
you need to get your flu shot you've
already been scheduled for 1pm
on april 22nd if you need to change the
time you can click here and do so
and the people who had the exact time
and date scheduled for them were four
times more likely to follow through
simply because they were pre-committed
and we often think oh we should give
people more options we should let them
choose whatever they want to do
but if we're trying to incentivize
behavior of trying to make it more
likely for people to follow through
pre-commitment is a great device for
doing this
implementation intentions is another
method very similar to pre-commitment
but slightly different and this is the
study that i like that shows this so
there was a study that looked at
different groups and their
motivation and ability to stick with
exercise so there are three groups in
this study
the first group they brought in and they
said we want you to track
how often you exercise over the next two
weeks
so that's group one group two we want
you to track how often you exercise
and we're going to show you this
motivational video about the benefits of
exercise
why you should do it so group two was
the motivated group
then there was group three group three
got the exact same treatment as group
two
they were told to track their exercise
they were given the motivational speech
they were equally motivated
but they did one thing differently and
that one thing is they filled out this
sentence
that said during the next week i will
partake in at least 20 minutes of
vigorous exercise
on this day at this time at this place
and what they found when they looked at
all the analysis at the end of the study
is this is what happened group one 38
of them worked out over the next two
weeks the control group no motivation
group two remember they were the
motivated group and the motivation
faded almost immediately as soon as they
walked out of the research lab
so 35 of them worked out and group three
it was almost double or even triple the
odds that they would work out over the
next two weeks
91 of them stuck to exercise and the
only difference was that they filled out
this little sentence
and it seems so basic but by
pre-committing ourselves to things we
make it much more likely that we fall
through
implementation intentions which is what
this is called this is an implementation
intention
there are over hunt there are hundreds
of studies on this so it's been proven
in a bunch of different contexts
it's very simple and something that
actually leads to real results
now you may be saying all right that's
great i should just pick times and
places for everything i want to work on
but in fact we can get really overloaded
by the amount of things that we want to
improve
there are all sorts of things you may
want to improve upon so how do you
decide where to start
again i'm big on simplicity i'm big on
eliminating
most of the choices that you can focus
just on the very best uses of your time
and if you're thinking how do i decide
what to focus on after this presentation
i would say focus on the keystone habit
and a keystone habit is a routine or
ritual that ripples
into the rest of your life it creates a
cascade of good behavior
so for myself my keystone habit is
working out i know that if i work out i
get
the benefits of exercise sure but i also
tend to focus better i have this period
of like high focus the post workout high
for an hour or so afterward
i sleep better that night because i am
tired and exhausted and have worked
myself physically
which means i wake up the next day with
better energy which means i focus better
then
and i also tend to eat better just
because i feel like i worked out so i
don't want to waste it so i actually eat